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Hanover News

Dartmouth College Links

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Former Dartmouth Review editor, Harmeet Dhillon ’89 is running for a seat on California’s State Assembly. The State Assembly--which does for California what the House of Representatives does for the United States--is divided into 80 assembly districts, each representing a geographical region of the state. Ms. Dhillon is running for the 13th district, which represents San Francisco.

Both Ms. Dhillon and her opponent, Tom Ammiano, ran unopposed in their respective primaries, Ms. Dhillon for the republicans, and Mr. Ammiano for the democrats. Though Ms. Dhillon is running as a republican in one of the most liberal cities in the country, she is optimistic about her campaign: "I'm a balanced civil libertarian--not some kind of extremist. And citizens and taxpayers have civil rights too--the right to safe streets and the right not to be tripping over street criminals when they walk through the financial district after hours. Tom and his cohorts are not advocating the rights of the law abiding residents of San Francisco," she tells The Dartmouth Review.

Her record, which includes a commitment to human rights issues, only underscores her point: as a lawyer, she has represented “several South Asian women victims of a high-profile sex trafficking ring in Berkeley in 2002....[she] has served on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Northern California Chapter, [and] she has also served on the board of Santa Clara County’s Support Network for Battered Women,” according to her campaign website. She has received several awards and honors for her work.

As a civil libertarian, Ms. Dhillon is generally opposed to government regulations, which stands in stark contrast to her opponent. Mr. Ammiano is famous for introducing a health care tax, imposed on San Francisco businesses, that taxes employees a dollar an hour. In addition, Mr. Ammiano supports policies that result in murders and higher crimes in San Francisco: for instance, he wants to shield criminal juvenile illegal aliens from being turned over to the federal authorities to be deported.

“Even after a triple murder in June caused by a juvenile illegal alien,” Ms. Dhillon explains, “he still wants to grant them the same rights as other American juveniles.” In challenging Mr. Ammiano, Ms. Dhillon hopes to bring a more moderate view to the State Assembly.

"Even if you’re a taxpaying law-abiding democrat," she says, "you are going to be startled by some of my opponent’s policies. This isn’t a race about republicans versus democrats, but about normal people versus extremists.”

If you are interesting in contributing to her cause, click here, or attend her September 16th fundraiser at the Yale Club in New York. For further questions or details, please e-mail Harmeet Dhillon at harmeet@dhillon08.com.